I'm considering opening an advice column for people who commute. I
think that it would be a wonderful way for people who have to drive in
heavy traffic to ask questions and get measured rational responses to
the problems they face on the roads every day.
I'd call it WWSPD
- "What
Would SnakePlissken Do?"
Book #7 was The Outback Stars, by Sandra McDonald. OK, nothing amazing, but good escapist stuff.
I have vague memories of reading the John Campbell books in the Islands
of Space series, by the way. Back when I lived in Vacaville, which
means grade school, or possibly junior high. Classic space opera stuff,
Morley and Wade inventing giant spaceships and super weapons as needed,
to defeat the evil aliens.
Friday
- I was looking at the book list for the Amazon Kindle. Pretty pathetic
- for science fiction there is a list of 91 titles and half of them are
ancient - John Campbell's Islands
of Space first published in 1931, Orwell's 1984
published in 1949, Piper's Little
Fuzzy from 1962, Half of the remaining titles are Star Trek
universe stuff. Half of thoseremaining
are various other potboiler stuff. Half of the remaining half are books
with
covers I don't like. Though I don't know if you can see covers on the
Kindle.
I saw this on the Yahoo! home page:
The linked article goes on to say that the musician fell backwards down
some stairs and smashed it. Then he borrowed a
Stradivarius for his next concert. What? Who would lend
this guy anything
after that?
My guess as to the conversation:
Violinist #1:
Dude, I fell down and smashed my $1,000,000 violin. Can I borrow your
Stradivarius? Violinist #2:
Sure Bro, no problem. Wow, where'd you get this wicked Columbian...
I was in an orchard, in Ventura and it was windy. Windy enough that
falling green (unripe) avocado's were a hazard. It was an old flood
control channel - I
couldn't find any contractor stamps but an old valve surrounded by a
concrete wall of the same vintage (the form marks are of individual planks) was marked
October 29, 1917.
Wednesday 13 February 2008
Wednesday
- work. Rather cold and foggy all day.
Tuesday 12 February 2008
Tuesday
- working,
More work. I thought I had the day off, so mid-morning I took the boat
across the
channel to get the fluids changed. Engine and transmission both - I've
no idea when, or if, they were changed before. It went pretty well -
there was no line from the engine sump so the mechanic had to suck the
oil out via a slender hose down the dipstick tube. The new oil was
inserted via the same method - the Yanmar oil filler cap is on top of
the engine and has only about 3" of clearance from the overhead - so
this was undoubtedly much
cleaner a method! I had the oil and fuel filter(s) replaced as well -
it was all
pretty straightforward. I bought an extra set of all filters.
I was going to have the impeller for
the cooling system replaced as well. Rather than an easily
accessible simple cover plate for
replacement this Yanmar requires the complete removal and disassembly
of the water pump -
a pretty expensive endeavor at a marine mechanics hourly rate. I may do
it myself, later.
In any case, there was no time for impeller replacement - midway
through the mechanic's
lunch hour the cell phone began ringing - the boss calling, more work
on the way for us. So, upon the mechanic's return we buttoned it up and
I took another voyage - about 400' - back to my dock.
It was beautiful
sailing weather, by the way, beautiful.
I did manage to get a half hour nap in, on the boat.
Monday 11 February 2007
Monday
- working.
Sunday 10 February 2007
Sunday
- a long day, about 12 hours of office work. What I'm doing is 1970's
style hand collation and analysis of data that should be done by
state-of-the-art 2008 GIS database software.
